Forty-eight people have been confirmed dead and 10 injured in a Taiwan plane crash Wednesday, the airliner said in a statement Thursday morning.

TransAsia Airways Flight GE 222, with 58 people on board, smashed into residential buildings after a failed emergency landing on the outlying island county of Penghu Wednesday evening.The flight carried 54 passengers, including two French nationals, and four crew, the statement said.

Family members of the people on board are rushing to Magong Airport and will get condolence payment worth of 200,000 new Taiwan dollars (6,673 U.S.dollars) for each from TransAsia, and families of the deceased will get a funeral subsidy for each from the airliner worth 800,000 new Taiwan dollars, the statement said. Xinhua reporters are also heading for Penghu. One of the black boxes was found Wednesday night, Taiwan's transportation authority said.

The island's aviation safety council said that experts would recover the flight data recorded in the black box to determine cause of the accident. The twin-engine ATR-72 turboprop aircraft was scheduled to take off at 4 p.m., but left Kaohsiung at 5:43 p.m. due to bad weather.

As it was preparing to land at Magong Airport in heavy rain, the plane was forced to pull up due to poor visibility and requested to circle above before trying to land but thereafter lost contact with the tower. On its second attempt to land, the plane crashed into the residential buildings in the village of Xixi in Penghu.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, conveyed condolences personally and on behalf of the mainland people. Xi, who is visiting Latin America, felt "deeply grieved" after learning the tragedy which caused heavy casualties, said a statement from the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office (SCTAO).

The mainland will provide help with all-out efforts if needed, the SCTAO said. TransAsia Airways, founded in 1951, is Taiwan's first private airline, mainly focusing on the island's market and short-trip overseas flights. TAIPEI, July 24: (Xinhua)